


Beauty In The Breakdown

by Aigerys



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, M/M, Mental Instability, Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-04
Updated: 2017-09-04
Packaged: 2018-12-23 21:18:17
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,663
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11998146
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aigerys/pseuds/Aigerys
Summary: This story follows Harry Potter as he fights to repair his fractured psyche and struggles with PTSD in a world where mind healing is an emerging form of care and the stigma of mental illness, even for The Boy Who Lived, is strong and alive.His retirement from being an Auror before even graduating class with the official excuse being failing the final exam drives a wedge between himself and Ron while opening a can of worms with emerging talent and now auror (and roommate) Draco Malfoy. Now it's up to Potter to figure out another path away from what he always pictured himself going down and trying to find who HE is after so many years of being who was expected.Beauty in the Breakdown is set 2 years after the Battle of Hogwarts.





	Beauty In The Breakdown

**Chapter 1.**

The acrid smell of burning filled his nostrils, causing his stomach to turn and bile to rise up in his throat. It was a struggle to keep from bending over and throwing up, but the sense of urgency beating in his chest was enough to keep him going. Stone was crumbling from walls of Hogwarts, crashing to the ground and kicking up dust and debris which coated everything. There was screaming in his ears – both of spells and agony – ringing through the halls that had been Harry’s first home. Crumpled bodies on the ground created an obstacle course that was nearly impossible to navigate through – though he was doing his best and firing off spells every chance he got. He couldn’t tell you how many were successful in finding their target. It had been a blur since the barrier around the school had fallen and, at the moment, it was all he could do to just breathe. Harry’s chest was tight, as if someone was sitting on it, and amidst the cries of pain there were hundreds of voices calling for  _ him. Harry, please help me! Harry, over here! Harry…Harry…Harry _ .  __ He pressed his back tightly against the hallway he had ducked into, chest heaving, eyes closed as he fought to regain some sense of composure. The world was on his shoulders, and for the moment, his shoulders were straining under the pressure.   
  
_ Harry. _   
  
He opened his eyes and lined in front of him with accusatory and  _ very dead _ gazes, were those he loved who had fallen. Cedric, Sirius, Dobby, Fred, Tonks, Lupin – and even Snape - were advancing on him, a horror show of wounds decorating their corpses. Suddenly, there was no way out of the hall. He could still hear the battle in the distance, but their voices nearly drowned it out completely.   
  
_ Harry, it’s your fault. Harry, you should have saved us. Harr— _

**_Harry!_ **   
  
The touch of a hand on his shoulder jolted him awake, green eyes flying open as he flailed in the bed, nearly rolling off the mattress onto the floor while tangled in a mess of Egyptian cotton sheets with far too high a thread count. He scrambled to save himself from the fate of the cold wooden floors and looked, wide eyed, up at the blond standing on the opposite side while unconsciously grasping for the wand that was under his pillow.   
  
“Hey, hey, Harry – It’s alright.” Hands were held up to show that he was unarmed which had the unfortunate (or fortunate, depending on who you asked) side effect of causing the towel that had been haphazardly secured around his waist to droop sadly onto the floor. “Look, see, I’m unarmed. You’re safe.”

He felt some of the pressure in his chest ease and he closed his eyes, taking deep, gasping breaths to calm himself down. Right. Home. Safe. Malfoy.

_ Malfoy _ .   
  
“Right. Right. I—“   
  
“I know, Potter.” Back to Potter. That interlude of first name usage lasted a whole fifteen seconds that time. It didn’t seem like it, but it was progress. At least he’d learned that calling him Potter while waking him from a nightmare was the fastest way to get a stinging hex thrown at him. It was most probably an act of self-preservation but Harry did like to think that  _ maybe _ it was because he liked him a little bit.

“Your towel, Malfoy.”

Draco glanced down at the wet towel on the floor, rolling his shoulders back with a lopsided self-sure smirk on his lips. At least one thing hadn’t changed: Draco still oozed self-confidence. “Enjoying the view, Potter?”  

“I’ve seen better.” Harry said, finally standing up from his squat on the other side of the bed and straightening out his pajamas. The snort extracted from Draco was enough to make him roll his eyes. “You’re going to be late again.”

“I’m never late, Potter. Everyone else is just  _ early _ .”

“I didn’t know you read muggle literature.” Harry said as he started to make the bed he so gracefully un-made just mere minutes ago. “Learn something new every day.”

“What?” The look of confused outrage on Draco’s face was perfect, “I  _ don’t _ and what an awful thing to say to me, especially after I just saved you from swallowing your own tongue!”

“That’s a  _ seizure _ , you twat. I wasn’t having a seizure, I was having a-“

“I know, I know.” Draco waved his hand in dismissal, “Apparently your sense of humor in the morning is as lacking as your grace.”

Harry decided to ignore the insult and picked up one of his pillows, glancing over to the blond again and making sure to keep his eyes from wandering, “I’m serious, though, Malfoy. Kingsley isn’t going to tolerate you waltzing in whenever you want.”

“Of course he won’t. He only has that tolerance for the Boy Who Lived. The rest of us are held to a  _ much _ higher standard. Of course that didn’t stop you from flunking out before certification, even with all of his leniency, did it?” The sneer was back in Malfoy’s voice, prior concern and banter replaced by the snotty, jealous student that liked to rear its ugly little head every so often. Mostly when it concerned the perceived privilege that Harry was afforded. It was another thing that would likely never change no matter how much effort Draco put in to being a good person.

“That really wasn’t necessary, Malfoy,” Harry said tightly, trying to keep his cool. Anger, explosive episodes, and lashing out – they had all been reasons as to why he had decided to remove himself and not complete the program. It was something he was working on – and living with Malfoy was a  _ constant _ trial. “I was only trying to help.” 

“I don’t need your help keeping time, Potter. You’re not a tempus charm.” Draco stepped over the wet towel on the floor and started walking out of the room, “Do try to make yourself useful around here for once, will you? If you’re going to insist on being inside all day, I may as well have a hot meal when I come home.” 

Three months ago, Harry would have not hesitated to jinx him for that comment and Malfoy would have been on the ground unconscious. Lucky for the blond, Harry had gained a modicum of self-control and, instead, slammed the door on him (almost enough to break the jamb, but that was beside the point) with a flick of his wand. If Draco protested, he didn’t hear it. The wand was set down on the nightstand as he sunk down onto the bed, eyes closed and his hand pinching the bridge of his nose. The  _ last _ thing he had needed was Malfoy finding out the real reason he had left the Auror program nearly a month ago. 

The official story was that he had failed his final written test and wouldn’t be moving on toward graduation. It wasn’t a stretch. After all, Harry had never been the best student and without Hermione there to constantly be on his back about preparing, nobody had really been surprised. The  _ truth _ was, Harry knew it backwards, forwards and sideways, but had spoken to Kingsley about his own concerns with his mental well-being. While he had kept his frustration at special treatment out of the conversation, he had made it clear to his friend that he wasn’t comfortable continuing his career – and the fact that he wasn’t overtly fond of Robards, the current Head of the Auror department, didn’t help him want to stay. Laying out his weaknesses, even to a friend, had been difficult – but he genuinely couldn’t have lived with himself if he had ended up hurting one of his colleagues because a loud sound or a particular smell had triggered an attack. He had nearly done so on several occasions and Harry finally had to acknowledge he was a ticking time bomb. Above that, he had been fighting all of his life and he absolutely didn’t want to keep on for the rest of it. As far as he was concerned, he deserved some peace.

“Alright, Harry. Time to get a grip. Being inside all day is not going to help anything.” Trying to reason with himself to leave his room was becoming easier, at least. The last three weeks he had scarcely done that. Malfoy wasn’t dumb. If he kept being a useless bump for too much longer he was going to pick up on something and trying to explain to Malfoy that he was seeing a therapist for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder – something that was not really talked about in the Wizarding world at all – was very low on his list of things he wanted to do. In fact, it was right below spending an evening with Rita Skeeter doing an exposé on his troubled past. 

Harry briefly glanced to the large fireplace in his room and set his hands in his lap. He’d been promising to floo Hermione for the last week. Bless her, she had been patient and hadn’t fire called him first, but he knew she would only wait so long before bustling through when he least expected it because he had taken too long. The new term was supposed to be starting at Hogwarts and she had offered him a teaching position twice – both of which he turned down – in order to try and get him involved in something outside of his walls. Thus far, she had been unsuccessful, and if one knew Hermione she didn’t handle being unsuccessful for long. “Better now than when I’m in the loo,” he muttered, standing up and tucking his wand in the waistband of his pajamas. Briefly, he considered actually putting on clothes but decided that he really didn’t  _ actually _ care and stepped into the fireplace. Harry grabbed a handful of powder, threw it down, and as the flames roared green spoke in a clear voice: “Deputy Headmistress Hermione Weasley – Hogwarts.”

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first foray into writing my own fan-fiction, though not my first time writing all together. Updates may be slow so please be patient with me.


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